


Running with the Demons

by lejf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: & demonic abilities, Altered canonical Sam powers lore and all that, Altered canonical demon lore, Concubine/Slave Dean, Dean is honestly kind of insolent, Eventual Happy Ending, King of Hell Sam, M/M, Omega Verse, Sam is just an utter mess, Slavery, Temporary Character Death, Top Dean & Bottom Dean, Top Sam & Bottom Sam, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 21:37:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9290627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lejf/pseuds/lejf
Summary: Dean, a slave in a demonic world still at war, is taken from his village to be one of King Samuel's concubines... but living under the king is nothing like he’d ever imagined. All-too-soon he finds himself witnessing too many things he shouldn’t be witnessing, rocking the boat, fighting to stay afloat.





	

**Author's Note:**

> If you hover over the ‘demonic’ language, alt-text should crop up with a translation. This doesn’t yet work for mobile, so the translations will also be added as a final chapter when the work is finished. 
> 
> The language itself is a real non-written dialect, so it’s written in IPA for illegibility, but it’s also been deliberately mangled just in case you _can_ read IPA and recognise it. It’s not supposed to be understandable (to anyone but me) without the translations. That's also why some of the translations might seem a bit... weird, in the way sentence structures and nuances are distorted across languages.
> 
> Hang in there for the OTP. Promise.

His earliest memory was of darkness, a muggy awakening, and stale air. The cave itself was a small and cramped one, ceiling too low to stand in and walls stained with shadows that pooled in divots and memories of claws. Groping around, he found scattered belongings that'd been left behind in a hurry. A leather jacket, branded shirt, worn jeans, an amulet ... a knife that slipped into his grip with a familiarity that spoke of years.

He found out, later, under the dim light of day, that the letters engraved on it said _Dean._ Whether it was the knife’s name or his, he took it and wore it on his shoulders like a raggedy mantle.

Outside the cave the stone crumbled into dull grass, fungi, malnourished trees and odd plants, strange and unidentifiable by any means, distinct in their blotched purple and greys. But the main feature of his small home was a ring of symbols etched into the earth that enclosed the perimeter like an ominous fence. Over the months, Dean learnt better than to leave. The skies were a perpetual grey and they clung to the earth as a parasite would cling to its host, bloated and feeding, turmoiled and bleeding, rumbling of thunder and a swallowed sun. Humanoid beasts would appear from the wastelands and stand at the perimeters, watching, shouting in incomprehensible languages, snarling at the runes. But they would not cross. When they did, or when they tried, they erupted from the inside out. Their intestines bloated and their tongues would swell until their skin gave way and they splattered across the threshold. If Dean could pick out bigger chunks, he did. It was his occasional treat of meat.

He was too wary to cross himself, though the day came when he had stumbled on a wayward gut and had flung his hand out across the line — squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation of red-black death — but there he’d remained. Lying in the blood-soaked soil and whole, a little startled, shaken. Regardless, he did not leave. There were monsters out there, waiting for him with their oily-black eyes and their alien words. Sometimes he saw them gathered outside, offering a coy hand or spitting with rage. Rarely did they speak English, and the words that spilled off their tongues sounded forced and stiff. He did not want to journey into _their_ lands.

Time passed with little inhibition. Although every few months he would lapse into a blazing, red-hot heat that left him wanton on the floors of the cave that no amount of stripping his dick would seem to alleviate, his days were peaceful. Never once did he recall who he was, but he was happy to be ‘Dean’. Dean must have made some rather questionable decisions in the past, he thought, when he found countless scars (even a bite mark on his shoulder) and the tattoo on his body. It read, in gold and all capitals like it’d been etched in with an unprofessional hand and a knife, “NO WORLD IS WORTH SAVING _._ ” He wore it like an instinctual part of Dean, a mystery, a key, one of the last lingering thing that was ‘Dean’. When he pressed a finger to it, sensation washed through him and buckled his knees as if all the blood in his body had rushed to his head. Magic. If the demons had their crackling powers, and if there were wards that kept him safe, it seemed to no surprise that Dean would have something of his own, although he wasn’t certain what it did.

Life was simple, peaceful, routine, reeking of sulfur, except the days were growing stranger.

Dean knew what was normal. A mass of darkness slithering across the horizon, engulfing smaller twisted beasts that screamed when they were caught. A flash of light like lightning that did not come from a storm. The occasional beast that would peer at him and either cross or leave, gnarled and mottled like the stones in the landscape. He even knew that there was a settlement of creatures nearby, because some monsters he had grown to recognise.

The flood tide of blackness on the horizon, over the hills, was what Dean would’ve classified as an _army._ He heard their footfalls from miles away, shaking the earth as though it was their war-drum, their cries and hisses, fervent and boiling the air. They were terrifyingly organised, marching in squadrons with magic shimmering around them and weapons in their hands. The cave was his refuge. He curled there and hoped the army would not flood over his little oasis, lying there silently for days until the rumble of their approach faded away.

In, almost shyly, curled the most alluring scent. Distant and thin yet honeyed unlike Dean had ever recalled smelling before. It tempted him out of hiding, sniffing the air and searching for the source. There were no creatures nearby, no pale-skinned one-eyed monsters, no nightmares comprised of flesh, no army. Nothing but the trail and memory of something fresh like taking a breath after a bad dream.

Dean had encountered many tricks to lure him out of the wards in his short lifetime. Promises of genteel, of friendship, of illusionary food ... none had held a faint, flickering candle to this scent. Irrationally, Dean almost believed nothing in the darkened world could imitate a smell so pure. Knife gripped in hand, Dean stepped over the line of wards–

Something appeared, just out of sight.

–and his feet were whipped out from beneath him and pain burst in his head until there was nothing.

*

Muttering flickered around him like moths as Dean woke. His knife was gone. He was naked and his hands were tied. He turned, knees coming up to preserve his modesty, and around him were... humans. Their scents hit him first, a whole array of them, spices and salts and flowers and sugars and blends of all. He reeled, head thudding against the wall. He’d never smelt so many humans before. Hadn’t known they carried scents like this.

“So _you_ got food, didn’t you? What demon dick did you have to suck for that?” She was dark-eyed, with brown hair almost black with grime, skin hanging from her bones and fingernails far too long, hunched with her arms tied behind her like she’d grown accustomed to seeming small. Just the sight of her made Dean feel overfed, though he’d only lived on mushrooms and leaves.

“Demon?” He hadn’t heard his own voice in a long time, aside from when those days hit and he’d hear his own whimpers echo off the cave walls. It was scratchy and low, like something dragged through barbed wire. “You meanin’ that as a metaphor?”

“Demons,” one of the men said. “Black-eyed? Won the war? Fuck, dude, where’ve you been?”

The black-eyed creatures were demons. “I lost my memory.” Dean glanced about. The room was cramped, unadorned, hard slanted stone floor and no exits in sight. How the place was illuminated was unknown; it seemed to glow the way swamps did at night — a little sickly and from nothing discernible. A small gutter ran at the bottom of the slight incline, water running through for wastes. Humans were curled together or alone in corners, sleeping or sitting or talking quietly, all skin and bone and naked. Some of them gave him sympathetic looks. Others turned away.

“Lucky fucker,” someone muttered.

Light flooded in as a hatch overhead opened silently. A face — _demon_ — was looming above, head wreathed by a thorny nest of horns, then flesh-coloured slop was landing in with a _slap_ against the floor and humans were sluggishly moving forwards, hands all bound behind their backs, mouthing for the chunky, soggy, unidentifiable food. Another door swung open from one of the walls (which should’ve been impossible, Dean thought. There had been no outline of any sort of moveable stone) and a demon stood in the doorway. It was human in all aspects save for black eyes and growths of keratin over its body, protruding over its shoulders.

“Green-eyes,” it commanded. The other humans shied away to the slop. Wet sounds filled Dean’s ears as they ate without talking.

Dean assumed it meant him. He approached the door as boldly as he could, wincing when the demon snatched his hair and forced him down, hauling him out of the stone prison. The door shut behind him and melted seamlessly back into the wall. Magic.

Eyes watering as he was towed by his still-short hair up a set of dirt-carved stairs, Dean got his first good glimpse of the outside once they exited the staircase. It was still the same world he knew. In the distance he saw the familiar sullen sky, a hill he recognised with its usual gnarled tree. He used to sit atop his cave and chew on dried mushrooms as he looked out into the horizon, where the earth loomed in waves and trees bowed under the wind.  

Fuck. So he’d been lured out by the scent of a human and then captured. Taken not too far from home. There was still a chance.

Another yank brought his eyes back to the ground, to the demon’s bare feet taking its strides. Its toenails were long and curled, not transparent but black, leaving gouges in the earth as it walked. A foreign language reached his ears: the flowing words of demons.

It had his head held near to the ground, so he was forced to bend over and drag his feet after him. The roving gazes of nearby demons blazed like hot irons over his back and his vulnerable ass.

Dirt morphed to stone and they were ascending stairs. Occasionally they’d pass another demon on who’d run a hand over Dean’s body. He fought not to strain away and snarl. It might encourage punishment. Instead, he snuck more looks out of the corner of his eye, and his heart sunk. Below spanned an enormous village of sorts, lumpy and misshapen buildings like sprawled-out mounds, half-cast in shadow, interconnected by bridges and pathways that more demons walked. An enormous wall rose on the opposite side, littered with holes and lights glowing deep inside and staircases just like the one Dean was ascending.

Comprehension sunk in slowly. The village was nestled in a colossal cave, right at the mouth where the sun’s weakness still spilled in.

They entered a smaller, darker, demon-made cave, too smooth around the edges, and Dean’s head was jerked up to see another demon hunched over a metal workbench, guiding a small laser it was emitting from its hand with sparks flying everywhere. Light from a furnace flickered across the walls and across cracks and crevices, casting its twisted features into a terrible glow. It paused and looked up at their entrance. Keratin curled all over its face, beetling out from its cheekbones and jaw, brow-bone and out from a lower eyelid. The demons were crude creatures. They had no need for something as material as clothing.

“Nɔŋa,” the demon holding Dean said in their tongue, pushing him forwards. Dean didn’t stumble, but his expression must’ve been thunderous as he took the reluctant step forwards. He didn’t need to understand the words. He was being given away.

The sitting demon regarded Dean for a long moment, black eyes scanning him from head to toe. Slowly, but deliberately, it turned back to its work, and muttered, “Saɦəh lasəŋu?”

“Hɛ! Ŋu gən nɔŋ gɑ̃na... gətɕaʑi ɦaa ʑu’hɔa ‘lasə’.”

“... ʑia nɔŋva,” it said, tone thin.

“Nɔŋ ɪɲ gəa!”  Dean straightened hesitantly, eyeing the demons. “Saɦ zənkwɑ̃ a ɪɲgə b’ŋu bəhɕjɑ̃ ɪəʑa.” The other demon snickered, patted Dean’s ass, exited, and there was a beat of silence where Dean sunk to his knees and thought about how impossible it would be to flee through an entire settlement of magic-wielding demons with no weapons of his own at all.

“Nuisance,” the smither told him in thick English. “Can you forge? Carve? Spell? Work bellows?”

“I can try the last,” Dean said cautiously. It scoffed.

“Of _course_.” It removed its gloves, revealing blackened hands. Red script was scorched into its skin. “Your braying fouls my mouth. Learn the proper tongue. And work the bellows.”

Dean soon fell into a routine as the months went by, arms cramping by the end of each day. His master spoke to him in the demon’s tongue as he worked, and slowly Dean gained mastery of the language, learning each sound with its different cadence and circumstance and context to gain a hazy feel of the vocabulary.

(He was most confident with swears.)

His master was the village smith. He made all sorts: axes, scythes, chains, polearms, collars, helmets, chestplates, and even a set of bracelets that he’d sent Dean to take to the village enchanter to fill an order for. If Dean had to pin sins on him, he would’ve said awful pride and envy. Wealthy and well-respected, he had the resources to take decent care of Dean — and he did. Dean wasn’t as deathly thin nor as wounded as the humans he’d seen when he’d first arrived, but he was still paraded around and offered up for use. Running errands, any demon was allowed to pull him aside and take him how they wanted, bent over right in the middle of the path, clutching a headpiece his master wanted delivered, teeth gritted together as he was rocked against a demon’s burning cock. Dean never got even the slightest hard, and the only lubricant that ever slicked the way was his blood. He treated it as another chore, painful as it would be and would be days after. Certainly, he hated it, but it wasn’t... world shattering. There simply wasn’t anything to be humiliated for. Demons viewed him as a warm body, not a statue to tear down, and if he reacted too strongly, _then_ they would enjoy his pain. So he didn’t.

But sometimes there’d be demons who liked drawing blood. It was after an incident where Dean had been shoved into another abode, his thigh sliced open and fucked into, a dick sliding into the rawness of his open flesh, that he realised what the magic in his tattoo would do. He’d limped back to his master and collapsed near the stairs, hands curled around himself when headiness filled him up like light overflowing in a sloshing bucket and sparks danced under his skin. When he’d looked down, the wound was gone without even a scar, but the gold of the words had faded into the regular skin colour of an inkless tattoo. It’d returned after a few days, so Dean found himself a means of keeping himself alive.

Over time’s course, Dean took deliveries, placated demons, sweetened deals with his body, and worked the bellows ... but these tasks were relatively menial, so it was to no surprise that he began to learn his master’s craft. Not all spellcraft was limited to demon usage, and some were even unique to his human touch; holy water and blessings could only be handled by him. Therefore Dean worked vigilantly night and day to fulfil side orders that his master traded in for services to provide Dean with sustenance. Demons themselves did not need to eat, but Dean did– and the gatherers his master paid with Dean’s crafted goods always shirked on their payments. He was constantly plagued by a distant pangs of hunger and exhaustion.

Dean was just grateful he wasn’t starving. Occasionally he’d glimpse other human slaves; because their work tended to be limited to the physical pleasures, they were left malnutritioned and weak. Dean was lucky he’d been given to a pragmatic master, a pair of working hands, and a set of nihilistic words that would heal him if any demons injured him during their rough handling.

The true reason why the demons were too preoccupied to torture him was because of the war. His master told him of it as he worked, cussing out the forces above. The war afflicted them all, demanded productivity and condemned indulgence. Lucifer, backed by all the followers he’d gathered over eons, was vying to take the throne from their one true king who’d freed them all from Hell. _Lucifer_ , his master had scoffed, scorn clear in his voice. _Ought to be happy just to be out of Hell. Chooses to make it shit for all of us too._ Demons were divided between those who had long sworn loyalty to Lucifer and those who had turned to pledge their allegiance to the king that had freed them.

Dean had overhead many things about the king. He was powerful beyond belief, cruel and callous, a brilliant strategist and cutthroat taxer. When Dean had learnt that the king was human, he’d been rocked to the very core. The king was _human._ From the torture he inflicted upon Lucifer’s army and the vicious tales of his exploits, he didn’t seem to be.

But the king was a distant figure in his life. Until one Dean woke to his master frowning out of their cave and a voice bellowing out and echoing throughout their cave.

Darkness still clung to everything. “ _Master?_ ” Dean asked, sitting up from his makeshift cot. It was cobbled together with scrap metal and extra cloth and sat close enough to the furnace to keep him warm. Dean kept his foodstuffs wrapped there and spent his heats there, panting in the sheets while his master worked and paid him no attention. Master didn’t rent him out during those days; it’d prolong the heat. Made him unproductive.

“ _One of the king’s men. They’re searching for the strongest humans from each settlement,_ ” the demon said, eyes still sweeping the buildings below. The unfamiliar voice carried across the village, loud and amplified with demonic powers. Or magic. Humans weren’t capable of magic. Dean wondered if the king kept human servants or demonic ones.

Dean could hear the courier again, now, his words echoing off the vast cave walls. _“All humans are to be brought to the city square!_ ”

“ _What a pointless fight,”_ his master sneered. “ _Of course you’ll win._ ”

Dean boggled at him for a moment– but it was true. The other humans he’d seen had been on death’s doorstep. True, some of the luckier sex slaves were kept in good shape, but they tended to be beautiful, frail and curvy women. The embodiment of sex and lust.

Dean was just Dean. Charred around the edges.

“ _Nuisance. I hope the king pays well._ ”

Wait, Dean was going to be taken _away?_ If he was the strongest... he’d be taken away. Again. Thrust into a new and unwelcome life. He’d just settled into the swing of things here.

“ _I will leave?_ ” he asked as he scrambled to his feet, dropping his eyes to the floor, hoping it wasn’t too stupid of a question. When Dean asked things his master deemed too foolish, he was ignored.

“Ɛ, _you are too well-known_.” His master strode to Dean’s little workspace. It was a smaller alcove carved into the wall where Dean had his blueprints scrawled and spent most of his days. “ _Take your tools. They are only useful for human hands._ ” Now that Dean was going to be gone, his master had no use for the human-shaped and human-enchanted tools. He wouldn’t want to take on another human. He’d been reluctant already to take Dean on board, but refusing or selling Dean would’ve been a disrespectful gesture.

Wordlessly, Dean did. He wrapped his tools up in his blanket with a single-minded focus: tongs, self-made blowtorch, goggles, gloves, hammers, chisels, swages, flatter and stamps he moulded for sigils; then padded after his master who was leaving the cave and descending the stairs. As they did, Dean saw the village alive with motion, previously unseen and hidden-away humans brought out into the light, bent over and skin pale, mottled with bruises and scabs, ribs jutting out like their bony hands, limping, insects emerging from spiders’ dens.

“ _See?_ ” his master spat. “ _Pathetic. In_ Nəiz̩ _they play humans for_ ɕunɪɲ _. Here, they’re sticks._ ”

They descended into the village from torchlight into sunlight, and through the buildings, across bridges that Dean had long grown accustomed to, weaving across the walkways, demons and other humans were turning their eyes towards the emissary. The herald looked like every other demon, but he had golden thread laced through his horns and he wore _clothing_ , neat black buttoned uniform, and the way he held himself spoke of an implicitly understood authority. Eyes fell to Dean and his master as they approached, and a few began to shout his master’s name.

As his master began to speak with the courier, Dean stood aside, scrutinised by and scrutinising other humans. Their eyes were sunken with despair, weighed down with the knowledge that they’d be here to stay, feet bare and dusty with dirt. Their scents were dull now, and while some part of Dean called for him to reach out to them, his feet held steadfast, fingers curled tightly.

Dean did not know whether he’d rather be a part-time sex slave and smither or a full-time sex slave under the king — or perhaps it’d be part-time, because the king was bound to have other concubines. He would rather be back in his very first cave where the days didn’t seem to matter and nothing ever reached him.

At the end, Dean hadn’t even needed to fight. The herald inspected the lineup of humans, turned to Dean’s master, paid him in low murmuring tones and a subtle hand and then Dean was being taken away with his bundle in his arms, looking back at his home of years before a hand pushed him to an elegant black chariot and they were gone.

*

_Demons aren’t corporeal, but they don’t tend to leave their bodies in fear of being stranded._

_Their actual forms are smokey and rarely able to manipulate physical objects, so they wear formerly human bodies that’ve been warped through prolonged possession and exposure to Hellish conditions. The people inside are long dead._

_Keep your guard up. They destroyed everything we had._

_\- D._

Despite his former master’s words of the settlement he’d once lived in, Nəiz̩, most of the humans that boarded the carriage were in a similar shape as he. In fact, he’d say that he was better off, considering he had belongings of his own. He clutched onto them warily, always on the lookout for thieves.

Dean was also not surprised that most of those who were hauled aboard were male. Females were typically taken as pleasure slaves, the weaker males were culled, and the stronger ones might’ve been kept for hard labour. They came dragging musky scents after them, tasting of pain and sadness and muted of rage and often with a bite mark on their neck. What on earth did that mean? In his corner of the carriage Dean shrunk back, eyes glittering brightly.

No one spoke. There was a grimness that hung over them in all their naked vulnerabilities. Even when one of the few females that came on whined and presented herself to another stoic male crouched near the floor, the male ignored her and they continued in their silent, rattling vigil as the strange steeds took their carriage across untravelled lands.

Tucking his bundle under his shirt, Dean resigned himself to sleep and was jolted awake hours later when the door to the chariot was flung open and a demon was ordering them out. “ _Hurry up, hurry up,_ lɑ̃və ŋua zəngkwɑ̃, _idiots_! _Don’t keep the king waiting!_ ” There were more carriages pulling up around them, humans emerging, all shouting from the jailers.

They spilled into the black cold, arms coming to clutch around and cover bare skin as the surrounding clearing ringed by trees loomed, wind whipping and pelting snow. Dean’s nose filled with a familiar, haunting, scent, and he looked up across the clearing to see a human in a thick blue coat, taller than any human he’d seen before, stark against the darkness of a tree trunk.

It was the king.

Dean felt like he had been split open. The scent that had lured him out of his home, into this Hell, was the _king?_ He had thought it so fresh, so pure and beautiful and piercing through the haze that was the ashes of a broken world...

“... _What is this?_ ” His voice was deadly soft, but Dean heard the words clear as day, as if the man were standing right beside him and speaking for just him to hear.

Something collapsed into the snow beside Dean. It was a blank-eyed woman, neck split from ear to ear, drenching the white beneath their feet. Two, three, four, five, ten more bodies fell as the king slit them open, soaking and dead.

“ _In_ ** _competent!_** "His bellow was a thunderbolt from the blue and the skies themselves trembled. The demon who had led them out of the carriage quailed, babbling apologies.

Dean’s skin shivered under the king’s glare, the man’s face twisted into anger before he turned away with a sweep of his coat and vanished into the growing blizzard. Eyes dilated, the demon advanced on the humans with its teeth spread like a thousand needles and bristles standing on end. “ _Come,_ ” it hissed as if they were at personal fault for its reprimand.

They followed, cold, through the ice and storm, whispering amongst themselves as if their spell of silence had finally broken. “He killed the betas,” they said in English, alarmed.

“Of course,” said another. “Why else would he want human slaves? Demons don’t present and can’t tell. Betas are useless.”

“Why?” the last remaining women snarled. “All this war going on and he’s got time to play with knots and slick? Fuck, _knots_?”

“That smell could’ve been anything! Maybe he’s something _else._ Delta or epsilon... Didn’t they used to have that rare shit?”

“All that demon’s gotta go to someone’s head.”

“Fuck, just an alpha prick looking to prove that he’s got the biggest dick of them all,” someone spat over the rest. The other humans seemed to agree. “Nothing like taking the strongest of the lot and breakin’ them apart. As if he needs a bigger fucking ego trip.”

“ _Quiet,_ ” the demon leading them finally snapped, and a force locked Dean’s jaw shut with a painful judder.

The castle that rose out of the ghostly trees was still and solemn, a graveness etched into its walls in every stone. Spires arched from it into the sky like crooked fingers, beckoning them closer. The doors stood open to admit them, infinite corridors filled with demons with red and black and yellow and white eyes, whispers carrying behind closed doors, air growing cold as they were led down flights and flights of stairs to a small stone-floored, stone-walled and stone-roofed room with blankets piled by a wall.

“ _Stay,_ ” they were ordered. The door shut with a resounding slam. Dean snatched a blanket and took a corner immediately, shrinking back to make himself as insignificant of a target as possible. The room burst into chatter as humans began to eye each other up in attempt to establish a hierarchy, taking two blankets or shoving someone else out of the way for a spot under the small barred window overhead, rearing up once they realised that this would be their lives. A blanket was probably more than most of them were used to.

Scuffles broke out with hissed curses of “alpha!” or “omega–” and long bony bodies shoved against each other with flashes of teeth and hands lashing out. Dean watched with dark eyes. Thirty or so humans. None of them he wanted to become familiar with. This was his home now.

*

By next morning, they were not fed nor watered. They had nowhere to urinate or shit. It was a disaster. Dean woke to ammonia stinging his nostrils and gagged, looking over at a shamefaced omega cowering on the other end of the room where other omegas and alphas were berating him, shoving him back until he slipped in the puddle of his own piss and began to cry.

Dean needed to take a leak. His throat was swollen dry and his stomach was curling in on itself. He took one look at his tools — decided that they weren’t of use to anyone else — and left them tucked in his blankets as he padded over the cold stone in his bare feet and wrenched open the door to leave. Their... _king_ had undoubtedly forgotten about them and their mortal frailty. The corridor lay ahead of him, inviting in its emptiness.

“What are you doing?” someone demanded on the other side of the room. “We were told to stay!” The other humans were turning their attention to him, drifting forwards as if captivated by the alternative Dean had presented, and their judgement pressed upon him hard enough to waver his resolve. Never had he felt so _watched._ Carefully, he covered his tattoo, absently noting brand marks on other humans’ bodies. Here, he was establishing his place among the other concubines. If his independence angered the king, he’d be at the bottom of the pecking order, and if this managed to feed them, he’d be treated with respect.

Honestly? Those were just peripheral thoughts. He didn’t want to die of dehydration, or starvation, or from busting his own damn bladder.

“Do what you want,” Dean replied, his voice rusty with disuse and the dryness that plagued it. When he met the eyes of those watching him: hungry, hopeless, looking at him as though he held a key, wary of the door and leaving it a large berth; a helpless sort of rage loomed up in him. They’d just been beating up someone for pissing themselves, for fuck’s sake! Despicable cowards! He rose to his full height, shuddering with fury. “ _Ŋu ɕutəva!_ ”

The corridor outside was deathly cold but Dean couldn’t show any moment of hesitation. His feet quickly bypassed stinging pain for numbness as he hurried down the hall, hearing the other humans begin arguing among themselves. He scaled a flight of grey stone stairs, taking corners at random, struggling to recall the path they’d taken in. The castle wouldn’t be fit for human inhabitants. He’d probably need to piss outside; it was fine. He was used to it. He wandered, keeping careful track of his path through the castle.

“ _Hey...”_ he said when a black-eyed demon passed him in the halls, not the first one he’d seen since he began his lone voyage. “ _Where could I find something to eat?”_

“ _You will only eat what_ Sɛmuɦjɤ _gives you, concubinus._ ” It was surprisingly respectful, though Dean should’ve expected that. No one would’ve been given permission to abuse the humans King — Samuhel? Samuel? — owned.

“ _He is not feeding us. We have been forgotten.”_

 _Now_ the demon’s face twisted into contempt for Dean’s ignorance. “ _Samuel forgets nothing._ ”

The demon left down the hallway, chin raised haughtily, leaving Dean behind with his doubts. Like turmoiled clouds, they bloated above him before they crashed down with a sudden dreadful certainty and he was sprinting back the way he came, breath thudding in his ears and heart going a mile a minute. Hall, hall, familiar door, turn, were those the stairs? He’d been gone longer than he thought– double back, take the other left, streak past another demon, reach the head of the stairs and take them five at a time, bursting through the door, back into the room, eyes wide.

There was the man who had wet himself before, crying in the corner. But room was otherwise empty, Dean’s belongings undisturbed, blankets tossed over the floor. No people. Empty.

“They’ve all gone?!”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. “T–they left after you.”

Dean was nearly literally shitting himself. “Oh, shit. That’s. That’s. Fuck.”

“You know, I thought I was the coward,” the man said, wiping at his face, then visibly steeling himself as he looked up to meet Dean’s eyes. “But that’s not me. It’s _you_.”

The words hung there for a moment, in a cold noose. Then Dean erupted with anger. He was across the room in an instant, shoving the guy back into the wall and into the unforgiving stones, hissing like a snake. “You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.” He was up in the guy’s space, looming over, every part of him bristling for a fight.

“Just because I’m an omega doesn’t make me _stupid_. I fought to get here– don’t you get it? I’m _strong._ You _taunted_ them out there, and you come running back with your tail between your legs. You’re a coward. A coward and weak!”

“You stupid piece of shit.” Dean drew back, disgusted, releasing the man and turning away. He was sorely tempted to throw a punch, but it wasn’t worth a fight. Not unless Dean tried to pass the whole thing off as a trick to get everyone out so he could beat up this one omega. It’d establish him as some sort of dangerous psychopath.

So, worth considering, really.

But the door opened. Not in the wild swing like Dean had thrown it open in a moment earlier. In a calm and leisurely way that instantly dropped the temperature of the room by ten degrees.

Dean turned, slowly, and was shocked into stillness by the sight of hazel eyes staring into his. His feet were frozen in place. His breath stopped in his lungs. Vaguely, he registered whimpers behind him, the omega begging on the floor.

He fell to his knees. “ _My king,_ ” he said to the floor, eyes reeling from the stench of urine.

“ _Rise._ ”

He lifted his head to the king and his towering height, his fucking _perfection,_ suit neatly pressed and hair tucked back, not a mark of hardship on him, standing tall and silently composed with eyes more watchful than a cat’s. He seemed a million miles away.

On one side of the room, the wall began to split under a rectangular carving, swinging open to reveal white porcelain and black tile, a large bathroom.

Those slanted eyes continued over the room, pausing to settle on the mess of piss, which wiped out of existence without even a blink, then — heart-stoppingly — at one of the blankets. _Dean’s_ blankets.

“ _You won’t be needing those._ ”

Dean closed his eyes in wordless lament for the things he still had control over. When he opened them, he was being watched, and he quickly averted his gaze towards his now-forlorn blankets devoid of his tools.

“ _Look at me._ ” Dean did, tamping down his residual anger. The king’s nostrils flared for a moment and he stepped forwards to tip Dean’s head back, sniffing at him imperceptibly and glancing at his bite mark. His scent flooded Dean in an all-encompassing wave, made him wish he were somewhere else, someone else; and over the king’s shoulder, he saw the other concubines slipping through the door, stilling with terror when they saw who was in the room, or flooded with relief when they saw the bathroom that had been supplied. “ _T_ _hose of you with your broken bonds... that’s no good._ ” He let go of Dean to scrutinise them all, eyes flashing dangerously. “ _Find it difficult to get on your knees and get fucked by anybody else now, don’t you?_ ”

No one said a word. No one knew what to answer with. Yes? That would be displeasing. No? That would be a lie. But Samuel did not seem to be looking for an answer. “ _Useless._ ”

They parted for him like ghosts as he moved to the door. Their mates were dead. Simple as that, and the king had only annoyance for that fact.

Dean been faced with the despise and spite of hundreds of demons, but another _human?_ He’d thought his people were better than this. This wasn’t the spitting anger and insanity of a humiliated omega. This was dismissal and disregard of human empathy in its entirety.

The king paused just outside, and he said in a voice low enough to make Dean’s hairs stand on end, “ _Next time you are told to stay, remember, you answer only to_ **_me._** _”_

Door slam.

Dean around, broken from a trance; the omega had disappeared.

*

 _There’s some sort of soap opera going on between demons and humans. Okay, hear me out: Most demons originated as human souls, and Lucifer both fell and created the first demon because_ _of his jealousy towards our people. It might not be positive, but we’re the guide to their existence. They embody the worst of us. They exist to destroy us. ...So what happens when we’re gone? It’s an entirely self-destructive gig. Very human._

_And are they self-aware enough to realise that? Fuck, man. Look. In the old days, I’d tell you: Don’t, a’ight? I know what you’re thinkin’. It’s stupid. Irrational. Don’t act on it. It’ll get you killed and before you know it, you’ll be staring up at Alastair on the whipping rack._

_But now– ever thought about what we consider our most evil, perverted, trait? Stone cold logic. A slate empty of emotion. Rationality at its extreme. That’s the demon we’re most afraid of. Makes sense that that should be the devil we face._

_I guess that’s why I’m still alive. We’re the flawed, endless army they’ve been hating for years. But now that they’ve swept over in a flood-tide, now that they’ve won... no final blow. They’re smarter than that._

_\- D._

The unmated disappeared first to service Samuel. Dean had to sit back and stare at his hands when he’d realised _he_ was going later because had a broken mate bond. He’d had a mate and he didn’t even _remember._ He’d had a mate, and that mate was dead.

Words, of mates, carried over from the other side of the room: “...They came wearing her parents’ faces, and we let them right in. Screamed so much I don’t think my voice has ever been right since.” People absently touched their shoulders, the scars of teeth, and that was when Dean understood what the scar meant. He looked down at his own, tracing it with his fingers as though it would provide him with a memory. Nothing.

The ones who returned from Samuel said they’d eaten and drank, but their eyes were shuttered and they walked with limps — regardless, alpha or omega —, immediately turning over to sleep, clamming up at any further questions. Some of them did not return at all. Dean didn’t know which was worse.

He found himself both dreading and anticipating his encounter. On one hand, he’d get fed. On the other... this was an organised, scheduled, rape and torture. He grew restless during the first night, too much sleep and too little work. His fingers longed to do something. Anything. Dean wasn’t built for getting lost in his head.

Nighttime and day found him wandering the halls. He was allowed to looked demons in the eye now — not that he wanted to. Not that they were looking back. Spires led him to empty laboratories and dungeons, prisons and execution chambers and meeting rooms and offices and storerooms and stables where they worked to tame huge dragon-like creatures. Everything was streamlined. Demons at work, no decorations, just efficiency wherever he could find. There were no casual conversations. The demons in the castle seemed to all have single-minded focus, going to their destinations and drilling down there.

He was just tracing the lines of a corridor when he was yanked out of place. Like a hook had been buried in his stomach and pulled him right out of where he existed, the world spinning back into focus in a room filled with light. He stumbled immediately, stomach heaving on nothing, arms flying out to catch himself.

The floor. Carpeted. White. Samuel watching him. Dean scrambling into a kneel, thoughts circling in a drain of dread. “ _Your name, if you recall it,_ ” came the order from above.

“Dean.”

A silence stretched taut. Dean swallowed and nearly chanced a glance upwards. Maybe he’d been wrong all these years and he name _wasn’t_ Dean? Maybe Samuel could see his true name etched somewhere in his soul? Maybe he supposed to have answered in the demonic tongue?

“Dean,” the king said softly. A pair of — white! — shoes came into view, trailed by his scent of a new day. “Aren’t you an ugly one?” A warm hand spanned Dean’s chin, tipping his head upwards. Everything in the room seemed to be spun in a heaviness of white, like some sort of image out of a design spread or a painting of deep snow and antiquity, deceitfully blank but veined with red: The bedposts, Samuel’s suit, the carved desk, the wooden patterned chair, the window frame with thick shut curtains... ornate designs that curved and sprouted, a mirror over a dresser, candles and lanterns in white-painted holders and shadows, the variations of colour not creamy but rich and royal red, wallpaper that looked like thorns and fingers, a smear of grey running across the ceiling. Dean followed it with his eyes, but it was cut off by the king filling his vision. “Tell me, would you like to eat?”

Dean’s eyes snapped back to him and he gave a short nod. The fingers tightened against his jaw. Pressure against his bone.

“Yes,” he gasped instead, hating every moment. “Yes, please.”

“Yes, please, _what?_ ”

“My king,” Dean said. The fingers tightened further until they began to dig into his cheeks and his skin threatening to split against his teeth. “Samuel!” he whined. “Samuel. Yes, please, Samuel.”

He was held there a moment longer, naked and kneeling and looking up at the immaculately dressed man before he was released, head dropping back to slump against his chest. His jaw throbbed with the phantom grip of a hand.

Was Dean supposed to have found out the king’s name? That was bullshit, it really was. Dean had been lucky. How about the humans before him? Maybe Samuel was a damn mind-reader.

 _Your hair is stupid,_ Dean thought, but when it garnered no reaction, he figured himself safe.

“Come here.” Samuel sat in a high-backed chair, facing Dean and away from his desk. On his knees, Dean lurched forwards, keepings his eyes to the ground in a display of submission, legs brushing through the carpet. “Eyes up.”

Sullenly, he raised his head. Dean had never been able to hide his expressions well. The strike came out of nowhere, invisible, just a lash of power, and it sent Dean reeling, cheek throbbing. “Be _grateful,_ you useless whore.”

His skin stung. Dean looked up again, twisting his features into doting. It felt wrong on his face. Felt disgusting and debased. He shuffled forwards further, until his chin rested on Samuel’s firm thigh. The man himself was strangely scentless up close. His fly was undone, inches away from Dean’s mouth, half-hard dick thickening.

He was hauled by the ears to engulf Samuel’s cock, full lips sliding over throbbing skin. Slick sounds filled the room as Dean bobbed his head, eyes clenched shut as his mouth was invaded, spit dribbling from him and smearing over his chin. In a sudden surge, Samuel forced himself deeper and wet heat fluttered around his cock as Dean began to gag.

Each time Samuel pulled back, Dean gasped desperately for breath, throat rattling before Samuel thrust again, careless of the body choking and struggling under him. “Look at me,” Samuel murmured, but his words were lost in the sound of Dean’s blood pounding in his ears and the thick cock shoving its way down his throat.

“ _Look at me._ ” This time Samuel didn’t pull out, ramming down Dean’s throat and staying there, seizing Dean’s face in his huge hands. Dean did, face streaming with tears as he coughed and hacked uselessly. “ _Beg.”_ This time Dean didn’t need to act. His whole body was convulsing for air, his eyes pleading desperately, desperately for release.

Dean had been handled roughly by many demons in the past, but never like this. Not in the way where, when he looked up into his torturer’s eyes, the world unfocused around him, there was no glee. No satisfaction. Not even rage. Those hazel eyes were devoid of anything, and that frightened Dean most. They stared at Dean without seeing. Didn’t even care that there was a life in his hands.

In that instant, Dean understood why demons looked at Samuel and let him walk. Samuel had nothing that demons wanted to destroy.

He was already utterly gone.

And he was gone far enough to be _worse._

Dean couldn’t cling on any longer. He could get no air at all. His nostrils flared, eyes watered, began to thrash and scrabble at the hands caging him, writhing. A fish caught in a net. But darkness only shuttered over Samuel’s eyes further. He remained where he was, cock shoved down Dean’s throat until darkness ate up Dean’s vision and he crumbled.

*

“Four minutes to choke,” he awoke to. “Impressive.” The words belied the tone. Dean was on the floor, carpet beneath his face. Samuel was at his desk, working without a care. Dean struggled upright. He was still in the forsaken room with its heavy red and white and thorny patterns, still on the floor, but there was a large bowl of water in front of him. A bowl of white, smooth porcelain. There were engraved roses on the side.

He fought his instinct and said, instead, “Thank you. Samuel.” He was not acknowledged. Hesitantly, keeping an eye on the king, he knelt in his place and tried to drink quietly. The first rush of water against his throat was pure bliss and his eyes fluttered shut as he took long draws, days of dehydration and soreness soaking up the gentle reprieve. His hands came up to tentatively feel his throat. It was sore and weak but he doubted there was any lasting damage. If there was, he would use his own magic to heal it later.

There was enough to quench him, but he still shamelessly licked the sides for droplets when he was finished.

“On the bed. On your back. Knees up.”

Dean rose to fulfil the command, horror churning in his stomach as he laid himself onto the four-poster and pulled his legs apart to expose himself wholly to the gaze of Samuel. The sheets were silken against his skin. His eyes were locked onto the ceiling. He swallowed thickly, not looking as Samuel stood over him at the foot of the bed. The first insistent press of Samuel’s cockhead was blunt, unrelenting, painful beyond belief, and Dean slipped into his usual tactic of pretending he was elsewhere. Thought about the orders he had back in the cave that he still needed to fulfil. One demon had wanted a pair of gloves that was infused with holy water, but Dean needed a way they wouldn’t hurt the wearer and could be pulled out in a hurry easily without–

A open-palmed slap brought him back into reality. “Don’t you _dare._ ” Samuel gave sharp thrust that tore at Dean’s insides, wrenched Dean forwards with a silent cry. “You are here _. Here._ ” Another snap of his hips lit Dean’s insides on fire like his skin was crawling with red-hot ants. There was no moment to adjust. Samuel fucked into him harshly and rough, like he mattered nothing, pounding into him. Dean found himself staring at Samuel, helplessly, drawn in by the disaster of a man like a shard of debris into a maelstrom. “Here, in this god-forsaken place with _me,_ in your pathetic, broken _excuse_ of a disgusting body! _Look at me!_ ”

For the first time that day, Dean saw real emotion: Cracked, twisted, _hate;_ loathing and helplessness and a feral anger that was searing to witness. Dean couldn’t. He shut his eyes to it and squeezed them tight.

A hand closed around his neck and clenched so tightly that Dean’s eyes flew open with a shallow, shuddering gasp. “You’ll never be able to leave.” Samuel’s perfect face was too distorted and too close to Dean’s. He was staring into the sun, going blind, body rocking and screaming with every lunge that bounced him and his soft, useless cock. “Our worthless, vile bodies will keep us here. Each. And every. Time.”

Something cracked and exploded in his ears. Dean went blind with pain. His body arched up in a gurgling scream as blood gushed from his neck where it had been ripped open and Samuel’s fingers were still digging in further, into the warm, desperate rush of his flesh and heartbeat.

Dean never thought he’d die like this, the cartilage of his oesophagus slick under Samuel’s fingers. He felt himself drifting away, head falling back, lips still parted, blood everywhere, the whiteness of it all growing further and further. Samuel had his hands pinned down with his power — reaching for his tattoo and praying for its magic was a distant dream. He was going to die.

Except he didn’t.

Except his flesh reknit under Sam’s hand and coming alive was so much more painful than dying, like having every part of him ripped apart and dragged back together, wrung dry, on fire and stitched up by a blind man’s fingers. He thrashed and screamed more than he’d ever screamed before, nothing but agony as the world was mangled around him, sharp spikes and teeth and eyes and needles and dripping warm dark blood.

Distantly, Samuel pulled out, the pain of Dean’s abused hole insignificant. He watched Dean return to life, Dean’s eyes fluttering and crazed, breath coming in aborted gasps, twitching uselessly. Samuel had never come, Dean realised. That had never been his aim. Instead, those walls of his had come up again and the king turned away, a mask of cool disinterest while Dean shivered and threatened to burst at the seams.

Dean didn’t think he’d ever be whole again. Hell was on earth, he realised. Right here, in this bed. Samuel had freed it and carried it with him like twisted thorns on his back, climbing up the walls, the wallpaper. Trembling, he reached up to his throat where the skin was seamless and whole. “Is this what you wanted?” His voice was hoarse from screaming like it’d been dragged through burning coals.

It was ignored entirely. Samuel’s voice was not filled with anger, not ice, but with a detached sort of boredom. “ _Get out of my sight._ ” He didn’t care. He’d killed and fucked so many humans before. Why would Dean be any different?

Dean didn’t think he could move, but he tried anyway. Everything was far away. His legs shook as he stumbled across the room. White. White. Thick red. White. Soft carpet. Enochian symbols everywhere. A glimpse of himself in the mirror like a ghost. Flickering of candles. Grey. The ceiling. An Angel’s trap. It hurt so much. The doorknob was cool under his hand, and he fell out into the corridor. The door shut behind him. There was a tray of food laid out there on the stone-cold ground.

His ‘reward’.

Dean didn’t think he’d be hungry for a long time.

 


End file.
